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Movie of the Week #13 - Marcel The Shell With Shoes On
Fourth movie with a running time of 100 minutes or less is Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (90 minutes) from 2021
Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.
The final movie for January is next Monday on the 29th with The Iron Giant
Tangential, but funny: I semi-frequently host online Open Mic events. In November 2023, a first-timer showed up - a cute-as-a-button teenage girl with a ukulele who sounded exactly like Marcel.
She'd never heard of the character, and when I showed her the trailer for the A24 treatment, I was rewarded with the sweetest little squeaky "What the actual fuck is this?"
I've been debating on whether or not to comment on this since it's been a year since I watched and I don't really remember much from it. It ran through me.
I thought it was fine. Generally well made. I remember the original video better. I was in middle school at the time and my gym teacher loved it so much that she showed the class. I don't think I even really cared for it back then. I didn't really find it funny.
It's kind of wild to me that this caught such a strong buzz with film critics at the time and was the critic/artsy choice in the Animated Feature category at the Oscar's. I guess I understand, it's got a lot of handheld, it's very 2010s indie, it's cutesy like Paddington (although I think that has more substance to it).
It's just not my thing. Like I've said before, Millennial taste is not something I share.
If this is supposed to be millennial taste, then it just confirms my opinion that grouping people into these "generations" is rather silly. I got absolutely nothing from this. I could see this work as a short film maybe, but here there was just a whole lot of nothing.
I think in terms of general demos and taste it's a fine thing. I'm a Zillennial so I can easily also be in that demo. But there's a certain archetype that is associated with Millennials. And in film, a lot of people do this but I'll say I do this specifically, there's an archetype associated with Millennials and the movies they'll praise. It's the types that were jizzing their pants over EEAAO. And I think those types became representative because those Millennials are the new guard of film criticism especially online.
I'm the opposite, I was jizzing over Top Gun last year.
I guess that is true. Especially with all nostalgia-bait movies that are being produced these years mostly aimed at the buying power of the millennial generation. I do however see a slight trend that people are becoming tired of that.
For Marcel though, from what I can gather from other reviews, it taps into an internet nostalgia from the time that the first short videos came out in 2010. The internet is also a vastly different thing now more than 10 years later, and lots of people seem to resonate with some of the remarks Marcel says like "this is an audience, not a community". But I guess you have to have to at least have participated in that type of internet social media for it to resonate. I would probably be more appealed by a movie tapping into nostalgia for IRC and phpBB forums, but I am not seeing that happening any time soon.
It's available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video, for those who have it, and want to participate.
It's also available on Paramount+, Showtime, and DirectTV.
I saw it on hoopla and kanopy as well if your library uses one of those services.
I have really been wanting to watch this movie, but I haven't been able to find it on Blu-Ray. Any chance it will ever get a release on physical media?
A24 released it on physical a while back!
Ah, they only released it on their website. I had been checking Amazon and Target
Amazon also has it although I don't know if you're in a different country.
I've seen these. They are imported from a region different than my own, and I was quietly waiting for a North American SKU at a presumably better price. It seems that it is exclusive to A24's online store, which is why I was never seeing it in my usual places.
Great cute movie that felt very relevant to my life. Being all about paying attention to the little things. On how insignificance is significant to those that are in the here and now. It's been about a year since I watched, so time for a re-watch I think :)